During the final week of the Hello Kitty Online Founders' Beta, we decided to test a format for in-game events and charity donations, and to reinforce the spirit of giving. There are already a lot of ways in which you can donate to various charities, but our intention was to convert in-game effort into a real-world donation. And, of course, to test how receptive Hello Kitty Online players would be to such a notion.

Thus was born "Food for Friends", a guild competition in which each guild crafted high volumes of certain food items and “donated” these virtual items to the poor. By the end of the event players had created and donated a staggering 344,965 crafted food items! Remember, this total represents considerable time, effort, and in-game resources, all provided by Hello Kitty Online players. We converted the virtual donations into a real-world sum using a point system, and based on that total Sanrio Digital then donated over USD 12,000 to UNICEF and the Asian Youth Orchestra.